The Trigger Phrase may also be used to activate latent physical prowess (or, to use the layman's terms, "asskicking"). A Berserk Button that not even the characters themselves know about, used when situations are about to get dangerous. Sometimes, it will help them remember something.

Is everything all right, Troper? There is no need to go on. There is only one thing left to say about the Trigger Phrase. And that's this:

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Agents of the Schwarz organization from Mai-Otome are triggered when they receive a letter in a black envelope.

Gwen Khan uses two on Melfina in Outlaw Star. "It was you who broke my Meissen plate" deactivates her, while "Breakfast is signaled with a silver spoon" undoes it. Since Hazanko had Melfina created by Khan in the first place, he also knows the trigger phrases and later uses "It was you who broke my Meissen plate" to ensure she can't resist him.

Ironically inverted in Gunsmith Cats. Mafia bossGoldy brainwashes her assassins into blind devotion with a designer drug named "Special K" that renders users highly susceptible to suggestion, so no phrase is needed. However, while she's working over heroine Rally Vincent, the latter manages an escape attempt while still under the drug's influence, during which she programs a trigger phrase into herself to counter Goldy's influence. The ironic part is that it's not a spoken phrase, but the distinctive sound of the trigger on her highly-customized personal pistol being pulled. How's that for a literal interpretation?

"Kimota" functions as this in the first issue of Miracleman, instantly restoring the hero's memories when he says it.

In Justice League International, the despotic ruler of Bialya, the Queen Bee, triggers Blue Beetle with the phrase "Bialya, my Bialya." Once the heroes have figured out what is going on, it's not very difficult to determine the responsible party.

Teen Titans Spotlight featured a superhuman psychiatrist who was brainwashing her clients into becoming secret assassins; she used the trigger words "Goldilocks", "Rumpelstiltkin", and possibly "Snow White" to activate and deactivate them.

Batman set up an alternate "emergency personality" for himself that was triggered by the phrase "Zur En Arrh." This is taken from a story in Batman #133 in 1958 where Batman encounters his crimefighting counterpart from the planet Zur-En-Arrh. In the context of the story, it is revealed that the phrase is a bastardization of Thomas Wayne's last words, "Zorro in Arkham."

Batman had another self-administered version in a JLA storyline. He was designing weapons to take out his own teammates if necessary. In order to keep the project hidden from Martian Manhunter's telepathy, he had the knowledge of his plans mentally "buried," and it could only be recalled when he heard a trigger phrase from his bat-computer. A different trigger phrase would "re-bury" the project in his subconscious if MM came within telepathy range of the Batcave.

In the Dethklok vs. The Goon one-shot, General Krozier activates Dr. Rockso's programming to kill Dethklok with the nonsense phrase "peaches valentine." This just happens to be the name of a character in The Goon. Hilarity (and murder) ensues.

Reformed, but Not TamedX-Men former villainess Emma Frost used her powers to shut down two armed guards' pain centers after a fight with Wolverine, which seems like a nice thing to do, but then she stuck something extra in:

Emma Frost: "And every time you hear the words 'parsley', 'intractable' or 'longitude' you will vomit uncontrollably for 48 hours."

Emma used this same trick in A+X #13 while on a personal mission with Black Widow, with a slight twist to it. Rather than a trigger phrase, she used her telepathy to implant a pervert (by the name of Frank) who was blackmailing her with a supposed sex tape with a trigger sight. Now, every time he sees a pair of bare breasts, he projectile vomits. Every time. Natasha finds it so amusing that she feints having left something behind just to go back and flash the guy again.

In the same series, X-23 has a trigger scent.Depending on the Writer, she's either learning to fight it or is instantly turned into an Ax-Crazy berserker who will kill the person marked with the scent (or sometimes pretty much anyone in the vicinity) without hesitation.

Ultimate Spider-Man's Norman Osborn set up "Cellar Door" as an all-purpose trigger phrase for his son Harry.

Ultimate Wolverine: "Mother is calling her children home" activates the Mothervine subjects.

The Authority: the military-industrial complex who built Seth, the hillbilly cyborg killing machine with over 1,000 super powers naturally set up a four-word kill-switch phrase. It's never actually used. Instead, the team's Reality Warper alters history so a less aggressive American administration came to power, and thus Seth was never created. "Welcome to the Oval Office, President Gore."

During the Teen Titans/Outsiders crossover "The Insiders", Superboy was brainwashed by Lex Luthor, who used the words "Vincere Aut Mori" ("Conquer or die" in Latin).

In one surprisingly disturbingMickey Mouse comic, the trigger word is "time". The villain (a psychologist, who sought revenge on Mickey for putting his son in jail) deliberately chose a fairly common word, so the trigger would go off often enough. It made Mickey instantly fall asleep and have nightmares, causing him to be unable to tell reality from dream and eroding his confidence.

Occurs in Transformers: More than Meets the Eye While digging around Decepticon Super Warrior Overlord's mind for information, Chromedome implants the phrase "Til all are One" on the off chance that if Overlord broke free (which he does) and if Rodimus says the phrase (which he will), there would be some way to stop him. The phrase triggers Overlord's intense fear of failure, briefly rendering him helpless and unable to fight.

In Violine, the word "fatalitas" is used as a trigger to snap someone out of hypnosis.

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In Liberty Meadows, Brandy demonstrates a trigger on Leslie. With a snap of her fingers, he puts the rehab-breaking Dean in a headlock. "SLEEPER HOLD! DAAAAAH!"

Modesty Blaise: The phrase 'Rip Van Winkle' is used to put a millionaire into a trance as part of The Con in "The Girl from the Future".

In The Perils of Innocence a memory-charmed Dumbledore remembers that the Potters switched Secret Keepers when Sirius shouts "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country" during his much-delayed trial.

Reboot (Miraculous Ladybug): Master Fu gave Marinette a series of words to tell his younger self to let him know that he sent her back in time.

Master Fu: If you are from the future, what's the password? Marinette: Veni. Vidi. Amavi.

Film

Serenity: River is activated by a subliminal message in a Fruity Oaty Bar commercial, but is put to sleep by Simon saying "Eta kuram na smekh," Russian for "That's for hens to laugh at" (i.e. "That's ridiculous.")

The original version of The Manchurian Candidate has both a Trigger Phrase ("Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?") and a Trigger Card: the Queen of Diamonds.

Telefon (1977). KGB sleeper agents in the U.S. were brainwashed via drug-induced hypnosis to forget their true identities and live as Americans until they heard a line from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", followed by their Russian names. When they heard it, they would destroy a pre-programmed target and then kill themselves. The Trigger Phrase was:

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. Remember [real Russian name], miles to go before you sleep."

The technique is demonstrated for Charles Bronson's KGB protagonist using the phrase "Cleopatra says there will be snow from the west." This is the scene being spoofed in the first The Naked Gun movie (where the beeping of a watch was the trigger) when Vincent Ludwig's secretary tries to shoot Pahpshmir with an empty gun.

The Ipcress File (1964). "Now listen to me. Shoot the traitor Ross." Fortunately Michael Caine's character was not in the brainwashing chamber long enough, so is able to 'distract' himself by striking his injured hand against the wall, then shooting the realDouble Agent.

In AI, speaking a trigger phrase will cause an android child to permanently and unconditionally love the speaker.

"You two will have the most intense orgasm you've ever felt, when you hear the word 'now'."

"Whenever you talk about money, you will play with your boobs, and not even know you're doing it."

"The Big O will happen to you whenever you hear the word "in", and will stop whenever you hear the word "out"."

American Ultra: "Chariot progressive listen. Mandelbrot set is in motion. Echo Choir has been breached, we are fielding the ball." Subverted in that the target responds only with utter bafflement. Double Subverted when, soon after, he effortlessly (and much to his surprise) kills two assassins sent after him.

Captain America: Civil War reveals that the Winter Soldier had a string of trigger words, used by HYDRA before missions as something of a reset code to see that he was still obedient to them and did not remember his previous identity. It's revealed that they still work perfectly, ensuring Zemo successfully reverts Bucky to an obedient fighting machine for a short time. For the curious, the words are "Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car," in Russian and in that order. The Soldier replies "Ready to comply," also in Russian.

In Dune, the Atreides slave gladiator who fought Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen received a post-hypnotic suggestion to have his muscles go slack when he heard the word "scum". The Bene Gesserit also do this to people they consider dangerous: one Trigger Phrase they use is "Uroshnor".

"She is gone." Upon hearing that, Hayt is supposed to kill Paul. He refuses, awakening the memories of Duncan Idaho.

"Secher Nbiw." Spoken by Leto II it causes Ghanima's self-induced mental 'dam' to break, restoring her correct memories and freeing her from the threat of possession.

In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Dirk hypnotizes Richard, and implants the suggestion that whenever he hears the phrase "my maiden aunt from Winnipeg" he should immediately take off all his clothes and jump in the nearest canal. It's a roundabout way of making a point about ghostly possession and free will.

Dean Koontz novel Night Chills. People implanted with conditioning through subliminal hypnosis are activated when they hear the Trigger Phrase "I am the key." They then reply, "I am the lock."

Koontz uses this again in False Memory. The villain has different trigger phrases for each person under his control, in the form of haiku. He speaks a name, the subject replies "I'm listening", then he gives each line of a haiku, with the subject giving a programmed response to each line in turn.

Starship Troopers. Mobile Infantry troopers are given a post-hypnotic suggestion to go to sleep upon hearing the Trigger Phrase "Prepare to sleep, one, two, three."

Citizen of the Galaxy. Thorby Baslim is hypnotically conditioned to memorize several different messages, so he can repeat each one to a specific starship captain. The man who conditioned him tested Thorby's recall of each message using the Trigger Phrase of the name of each captain and ship.

In the book that is sometimes called the Take That! to Starship Troopers, The Forever War has a hypnotic phrase that is used on the conscripts for their first battle, as the military command isn't confident that they will kill the enemy. It works too well, as the soldiers start blasting everything in sight.

A B-plot in one of the X-Wing Series books is the presence of several brainwashed assassins throughout the New Republic: each has their own trigger phrase, all somewhat bizarre. "Wedge Antilles hops on one transparisteel leg" means "Kill Wedge Antilles," for instance. "The Wookiees are dancing in the parlor" means "Kill everyone between you and Admiral Ackbar, then kill him." Apparently the triggers are different for everyone. A later book has a man sent to deliver a message simply by his presence - he's been known to be in a secret prison for years - with a device implanted that floods him with poison, killing him instantly. The device is triggered when someone recognizes the man and says his name.

Kirney Slane uses a trigger phrase to load the backup memory of her astromech droid, Tonin, which she had wiped shortly before her infiltration. (The phrase is the full definition of Tonin's name.) This is part of an inverseMemory Gambit, and one that Slane hadn't really liked doing to Tonin; it's implied that Tonin doesn't mind too much (and may have consented to this treatment to begin with).

In Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, the school has a hypnotist guidance counselor who cures people of whatever it is they've been sent to him for, but also implants an unrelated trigger phrase just For the Evulz. In the chapter "A Story with a Disappointing Ending," Paul gets sent to him for pulling Leslie's pigtails and is hypnotized into thinking they're deadly rattlesnakes... and also that when she says the word "pencil" her ears will turn into delicious candy which he must try to eat. He's snapped out of it and sent back to class, and the hypnotism successfully prevents him from pulling Leslie's pigtails. Then she breaks her pencil. She two classmates have a whole discussion about it without using the word "pencil," even though Paul interjects twice asking what they're talking about. Several chapters later, the class is dropping objects out the window to prove that everything falls at the same speed, including a pencil sharpener. Because everyone's been saying "pencil sharpener" throughout the chapter, you think nothing of it at the end when Leslie does...

In The Miserable Mill, part of A Series of Unfortunate Events the word "Lucky" is used as a trigger to the point of parody, since the good guys catch onto it and both sides flip Klaus back and forth in obeying their commands. The word "Inordinate" deactivates the state.

The eleventh book of The Dresden Files, Turn Coat, features one of the antagonists using the Trigger Phrase "The end is nigh." to take control of several Wardens and members of the White Council of Wizards.

In the YA novel The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Jenna was, after a nearly fatal car accident, placed into an artificial body with a reconstructed "brain" made of computer chips, which was programmed with a trigger phrase as a "suggestion" to use in case anything went wrong: "Go to your room, Jenna." If said, this phrase would cause Jenna to automatically walk to her room, whether she wanted to or not - though she learns to resist it eventually.

In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 short story "The Returned", the Doom Eagles fear that Tarikus, even pure of taint in mind and body, might still have taint in his soul, which might be triggered by a phrase.

Becomes very important late in the Honor Harrington series, though with Trigger conditions rather than phrases. The control affected by the nano-tech is so complete that it can convince the personal bodyguard of an Andermani Royal to kill the man he's guarding, to convince a Manticoran flag lieutenant to kill his flag officer, and convince a man to commit suicide by Mach 2 impact into a cliff-wall while in his air-car. Even worse, the victims are aware of what they're doing and unable to stop themselves from acting.

In the Emily Rodda novel Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal, it is revealed in the end that Doss had been brainwashed by the Zebak years previously, the trigger phrase being the words that officially made him Keeper of the Crystal. He got better.

In the book The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake, the gang hires a specialist (a hypnotist) to plant the phrase "Afghanistan banana stand" in the mind of a bank employee. Later, one of the gang enters the bank and says this, and the employee helps them to retrieve the eponymous gem.

Used in The Stand, Glen telling Tom "it's time" as in 'time to go West', after hypnotizing him earlier.

In Mortal Engines: Infernal Devices, a Stalker is programmed to assassinate the leader of the Green Storm when it hears the phrase "The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew tree are of equal duration".

Mindwarp has a character, a time-traveler named Toni, whose powers first trigger when trying on a dress, looking at herself in a changing room mirror. She travels back in time eight years for a little while, then returns to the present outside the store, and gets busted for shoplifting. Later at home, she tries the dress on again and goes back in time eight years to when she was five and her mother was still alive. After speaking together, the mom calls in five-year-old Toni and implants a hypnotic command to come back to this day when seeing 13-year-old Toni in that dress. Later, she uses her mugshot from her shoplifting arrest to escape a jam, and rearm in the mall.

In The Southern Reach Trilogy, the psychologist implanted the expedition members with post-hypnotic suggestions, which she can activate using trigger phrases woven into her speach.

One episode where the agent is Max and the trigger is "Checkmate." Max is meant to challenge his target, The Chief, to a chess game and then shoot him when he loses (given that Max is too incompetent to win). Unfortunately Max dithers so much during the game, that when he finally does lose an exasperated KAOS Double Agent in the room shouts "Checkmate!" in delight, and gets shot instead.

The follow up joke in the epilogue is that even after Smart realizes this manipulation at the end of the story, The Chief finds out the hard way that Smart is still reflexively shooting at any one saying "Checkmate," and Smart has to sheepishly explain that a bad habit is hard to break.

In another episode, Hymie is reprogramed to shoot Max when he asks for the check. But Max asks for it in Spanish, and when Hymie translates for the girl with them (saying "check" in English), he promptly shoots himself.

Dollhouse: Activates: "There are three flowers in a vase. The third flower is green." Deactivates: "There are three flowers in a vase. The third flower is yellow."

Dollhouse has a few of these. Most used is simply "would you like to go for your treatment?" or "it's time for your treatment" which is said to an engaged Active by their handler. This immediately makes the Active stop what they are doing and go with their handler back to the Dollhouse to be mind-wiped. Played for Laughs in a Deleted Scene where Ballard tries using the phrase to stop November, who's been programmed as a tough Bounty Hunter.

Also often used are the trust passwords between handler and Active. "Do you trust me?" "With my life." "Everything's going to be alright." "Now that you're here."

This exchange could count, though it's initiated by the triggeree - used whenever an Active is reset to "tabula rasa":

Active: Did I fall asleep?

Handler: For a little while.

Active: Shall I go now?

Handler: If you like.

The Odd Couple: "The fault lies not with the stars but with ourselves" made Oscar neat, and a finger-snap made him back to normal.

In Big Wolf on Campus, Tommy is brainwashed by the Evil Werewolf Syndicate to obey any command preceded by two specific, secret words. Due to a badly-timed minion interruption, those words end up being "Pizza's here." (Yes, hilarity does ensue.)

Nowhere Man. The episode "Marathon" used "It's a lovely day" or "It's a nice day" (it's been a while since I saw it) spoken over the telephone to activate a Manchurian Agent killer.

In the Due South episode "Seeing Is Believing", Fraser hypnotizes most of the other main characters in order to reconcile their accounts of a murder. He takes the opportunity to give trigger phrases to both Ray and Inspector Thatcher, making Ray apologize when he says "cauliflower" and Thatcher agree with him when he says "eggplant".

In one episode of MacGyver (1985), Pete gets brainwashed into shooting whoever utters the trigger phrase "From the bottom of my heart, I salute you". The Big Bad wanted to use him to kill a visiting dignitary (who was scheduled to give a speech containing that phrase at a dinner Pete would be attending).

In one episode of The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, Beans is given the task of babysitting a robot, which becomes an unstoppable killing machine when it hears its trigger phrase. The phrase was designed to be the least likely thing for a person to say ("M. I. N. D. Mood"), but Beans had a dental appointment earlier and his mouth was numbed-up. When his girlfriend asked him if he was in the mood to make out, his slurred answer just happened to match the robot's trigger phrase.

Played for Laughs in Night Court. Bull Shannon is due to appear on a game show but is nervous, so his friends hypnotise him so he will remain calm when he hears a Trigger Phrase which is...unfortunately the lecherous DA Dan Fielding choses that moment to say "I want to be your love slave!" to an attractive prison officer. Ironically Bull handles the game show quite well but Dan, not realising this, rushes onto the stage and shouts "Bull, I want to be your love slave!" on live television. At a press conference Dan excuses his actions by saying he was kidnapped and brainwashed by Soviet agents.

Used in an episode of Cheers, where it turns out that Frasier has implanted some in Lilith. "Tambourine" causes her to strip, and "tractor" makes her sing.

Father Brown: In "Sins of the Father", the murderer hypnotises one of his patients into going into a trance whenever he hears a particular piece of music and killing whoever is playing it, and then sends the sheet music to the man's son to practise for a music competition. He did not foresee his patsy later coming on someone else playing the same piece of music.

HYDRA Agent: Take a deep breath. Calm your mind. You know what is best. What is best is you comply. Compliance will be rewarded.

Subject: I am happy to comply.

In one That's So Raven episode, Victor is accidentally hypnotized by a friend of Corey's to fall into a coma like state when he hears 'San Francisco' and wake up only when he hears 'Okeechobee'.

Kamen Rider Drive eventually reveals that the Freeze Roidmude (posing as the Minister of Defense) implanted the higher-ups of the police department with a mental suggestion that used "Roidmude" as a trigger word; whenever they heard it, they would become skeptical and mistrusting, not taking the Roidmude threat seriously. Lt. Ohta was also subject to the brainwashing, but for some reason it caused him to constantly mispronounce the word as things like "Pork Roast" or "Hemmoroid" — one of the show's longestRunning Gags, but also the reason he was able to remain competentnote He was part of the top cops, but got demoted to the "reject squad" precisely because he recognized the Roidmudes as a threat and wouldn't just drop it when ordered by his bosses. Rinna develops a cure which not only ends Ohta's Running Gag but allows the police to actually give Drive the support he's needed all along.

Played with in the mini-series Confessional (based on the thriller by Jack Higgins). A KGB assassin whose cover identity is a god-fearing Catholic has his conditioning activated when he says the Lord's Prayer. Unlike other examples it's not a hidden personality, but a means of psychological reinforcement which breaks down after The Handler is ordered to kill his protégé — he discovers that it's difficult to tell an assassin to say his prayers when he's drowning you in the river.

In Westworld, "a deep and dreamless slumber" is used to put a Host into Sleep Mode.

In Star Trek: Discovery, the trigger phrase for a certain Manchurian Agent is an ancient Klingon prayer, except it fails to work on Tyler/Voq, much to L'Rell's surprise, as the Tyler personality has developed feelings for Burnham.

Handler: Whom do we seek?

Agent: Kahless.

Handler: How do we find him?

Agent: Together.

Handler: Give us light to see.

Agent: Forever.

Handler: Will he hide from us always?

Agent: Never.

Children of Dune. The Emperor Muad'dib is presented with two people as gifts — a resurrected Duncan Idaho and the dwarf spy Bijaz. However Duncan later discovers he's actually a Manchurian Agent under the control of Bijaz.

A Mind Cleansed character in Dark Heresy has the innate weakness of a trigger phrase. Notably, this isn't just a phrase — there's too much risk of outside forces learning it and using it against the Inquisition. The phrase must be delivered either telepathically or at a specific frequency to activate the latent programming.

In Warhammer 40,000, the Witch Hunters faction possesses a unit called an "Arco-Flagellant". These are convicted heretics who undergo severe cyber-reconstruction and psycho-conditioning to make them insane killing machines. However, they are also equipped with pacifier helms that project soothing images and hymns into their brains... at least until the trigger word is spoken. Then they kill everything in sight.

Video Games

BioShock: "Would you kindly?", used to compel the Player Character to do anything. One of the antagonists, Andrew Ryan, uses it to chilling effect in one cutscene. After you make it past his final defences he reveals that Fontaine has been controlling your actions all along. He demonstrates by controlling you like a dog, telling you to sit, stand, so on. Then, he hands you his golf club and commands you to kill him, wanting to 'choose' the terms of his own death rather than 'obey' Fontaine. Also "Code Yellow", which is meant to stop your heart.

A variation of this shows up in Bioshock Infinite, where the notes CAGE summon the Songbird.

A variation in the Interactive Fiction story Spider and Web: the trigger words "tango" (on) and "waltz" (off) are used to activate a special device the protagonist holds. When you realise that you previously attached an acid capsule to the chair you are now bound in. When the Big Bad, who is interrogating you, asks you if you have any last words, you casually reply: "Tango." The acid dissolves your bonds, releasing you, and you then proceed to deck him, rob him blind, and escape.

In Fallout 3, one quest features an escaped android who can be rebooted with a trigger phrase.

And then there's President Eden. Saying "Priority Override, Authorization code 420-03-20-9" will reset him to factory defaults (same happens if you trick him into realizing he's in a logical loop) and activates his self-destruct sequence.

Also, according to a computer log in Vault 92, the phrase "Sanity is not statistical" was used to pacify the people driven mad by the Vault's white noise experiments. The problems start when the "crazies" start resisting the command.

In Fallout: New Vegas, the robot ED-E has two hidden recordings from the scientist who built him, which are activated when it hears people talking about the Enclave or the Brotherhood of Steel.

In the Dead Money DLC, you use holotapes to get the schizophrenic Super Mutant Dog/God to switch personalities. A recording of God saying "Dog, back in the cage" is used to summon God while a recording of Elijah's voice is used to summon Dog.

Similar to the above example, Fallout 4 shows that all of the Institute's androids, or synths, have a trigger phrase to reboot them. If the player gives Mama Murphy drugs, she tells them the code to deactivate a synth they have to kill as part of the main story. In addition, if the player sides with the Institute in the Battle of Bunker Hill, they are given the trigger phrases for a group of escaped synths in order to recapture them.

Used in Tales of the Abyss. "When I give you the order, you will open every fon slot in your body and unleash a hyperresonance. The Trigger Phrase will be 'Foolish replica Luke'."

A variant: two of the bosses from Deus Ex can be defeated simply by uttering specific two-word phrases at them. They're kill phrases, not trigger phrases.

Natla can control the Thralls & the Doppelganger of Lara with the phrase "Okh Eshivar".

In the "Lara's Shadow" DLC when Natla orders the Doppelganger to kill itself after killing Lara the Doppelganger is visibly displeased, but has no choice but to obey. Fortunately, Lara learns the Command Phrase in time to stop the Doppelganger just as its about to kill her.

Upon questioning it and realising that the Doppelganger would act just like her if it was free to do so, Lara orders it to ignore all commands from that moment on. Upon returning to and destroying the machine that was reviving Natla, the trapped Natla attempts to use the phrase to get the Doppelganger to save her but Lara's Order has made her immune. The Doppelganger just watches as the increasingly frantic and desperate Natla drowns in the leaking fluid from the machine.

The Imperial Agent player character in Star Wars: The Old Republic is subjected to "Castellan restraints", a form of mind control that is applied well ahead of time, only kicking in when they hear a specific code word. Yours is "onomatophobia", since you asked. When the code is used, the victim is compelled to carry out any commands given to the best of their ability. You are eventually able to recover by subjecting yourself to the Castellan process again, only this time with a code word of your own choosing; you then order yourself to ignore the previous trigger. In Knights Of The Eternal Throne; Vaylin has a Power Limiter that is activated by the key phrase: "Kneel Before the Dragon of Zakuul!". She eventually gets it removed, though it returns in the Final Boss where you are able to use it against Valkorion due to the battle taking place in your mind.

In Halo 4's Spartan Ops, Halsey takes over the Infinity's AI, Roland, by uttering the words "Undid Iridium". She wrote the base code for most, if not all, of the UNSC's Smart AIs, and she put these in just in case.

In Skullgirls, Painwheel can supposedly be placated and controlled by the phrase 'Access Code 36E-25-40'. However, the closer she gets to the Skullgirl, the more capable she becomes of resistance until in the Cathedral where she outright refuses.

LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2: As in the comics, Roberta Mendez, the Captain America of 2099, is controlled by one. "Avengers assemble" brings forth Captain America, and "dismissed" causes her to go back to being Roberta. Unfortunately, some HYDRA goons have discovered this, and use it to their advantage.

Web Comics

There is a universal trigger phrase for artificial intelligences in Freefall. Any orders prefaced by the words "direct order" must be obeyed by any artificial intelligences that hear it. They must also continue to obey the order until they are given a direct order to stop obeying the previous order. There are exceptions to the Direct Order system though: Florence can disobey direct orders given by someone without the authority to give them, and direct orders can also be ignored by AIs who are working to protect humanity, like Blunt believes he is.

Also, Bowman Wolves are designed with a few auditive and scent-based triggers which allow tinkering with their minds without requiring physical access to their brain. After one such trigger is abused on Florence, Dr Bowman uses another to adjust her security settings.

In Sluggy Freelance, Oasis seems to be triggered by an image instead of a phrase. When she sees the HeretiCorp logo, she immediately goes into "Override B-1" and kills all HeretiCorp employees in the area. (One wonders why, after several years of this, the company hasn't just picked a different logo.)

It's not just the logo; she attempted to kill Riff when Torg blurted that he worked for hC. Her off-trigger was the words, "I quit," which hC mooks immediately and emphatically used.

Skin Horse's Unity has the trigger phrase "blueberry waffles" to make her stop fighting, because that tends to be rather more difficult than getting her to start.

In the long-defunct Professor X Programme Guide website (about the Show Within a Show version of Doctor Who), the Professor routinely hypnotises his companions to cluck like a chicken when he says "Zeus plugs", because it amuses him.

Played for Laughs in Mexican Standoff when a character is revealed to be a sleeper agent, trigger only when someone utters the phrase "blueberry pie."

Dragon Ball Z Abridged: In Broly Abridged, rather than seeing Goku being what sets him off like in the original movie, Broly's wrath is unleashed by him hearing the name "Kakarot" (Goku's Saiyan name): His father Paragus mentions that he destroyed South Galaxy after Paragus said it, and Vegeta saying it repeatedly is what triggers Broly's transformation into the Legendary Super Saiyan.

Scootertrix the Abridged has a downplayed example in The Bird, who reacts to "Hello" (or "Hey," or anything that could be interpreted as a greeting) by saying "Hello" herself, as an almost Pavlovian reflex. In episode 5, it gets lampshaded by Gilda: "Is that like, your trigger word?" And in later episodes, Twilight realizes that The Bird doesn't always respond to her own name, so she just says "Hello" when she needs The Bird's attention.

Western Animation

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: In "There's No Place Like Springfield", "Frogs in winter" made Shipwreck recite the formula for a chemical compound that turns water into an explosive.

In a variant from Back at the Barnyard, Otis is accidentally hypnotized to try and kill the Farmer every time he hears a bell ring.

In Futurama episode War Is the H-Word, Bender is fitted with a bomb that will explode when he says the word "ass," which in a reversal from the norm is specifically selected as the word he says most often. At the end Dr. Farnsworth tries to defuse the bomb but can't and instead resets it so it will be detonated by the word Bender is least likely to say - which Bender immediately triesto guess.

It takes at least three tries.

The word is "antiquing".

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Joo Dee, all the other Joo Dees, and Jet would obey anyone who said "The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai," without question, their compliant state signalled by falling limp and responding "I am honored to accept his invitation."

In Batman Beyond, a doctor specializing in robotic prosthetics was forced by a gang to give them weaponized versions. He secretly put a trigger phrase in the limb's coding, which would make them fall apart. Batman figured it out at the end battle ("April Moon", after the favorite song of the doctor's wife), and defeats the gang.

In an episode of Pinky and the Brain, a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of then-head of Warner Brothers Television Jamie Kellner had one of these given to him as a hypnotic anesthetic. The word "repugnant" worked as an on-off switch; shame it was Brain's Catch-Phrase after becoming a stand-up comedian...

And thanks to some Executive Meddling, it makes you wonder if any fans ever tried yelling it at him in real life.

Inspector Gadget: "Quiz Master" featured a MAD plot to hypnotize contestants on a game show (including Gadget himself at one point) to do Dr. Claw's bidding with the phrase "Going my way?"

Young Justice has two trigger phrases. First is "Red Sun," used by Lex Luthor as an immediate fail-safe to stop Superboy from acting belligerent during a shady dealing between the two. Should he choose to attack his manipulator... Luthor can leave him catatonic for hours on end. It's the result of mental brainwashing by CADMUS while being grown as a Living MacGuffin clone of Superman as insurance in case he suffered from insanity. However, it also raises suspicion he might be a Manchurian Agent. Eventually, this is proved wrong, and Miss Martian uses her own mental prowess to wipe out the subliminal trigger.

The second phrase is much more unexpected. Red Arrow discovers he isn't the actual protege of Green Arrow, but a clone of Roy Harper, A.K.A. Speedy, with directives to infiltrate the Justice Leaguewithout the actual knowledge he was doing so, cleverly disguised as valid human intentions not to be treated as a sidekick anymore. He also came pre-programmed with the phrase "Broken Arrow," used by Sportsmaster to make him a vegetable while he and his cohorts extract information from him, or if the villains simply want him out of their hair. It had actually been spoken once much earlier in the series; it seemed to be just a quip at the time.

In an episode of The Simpsons, Sideshow Bob hypnotizes Bart to kill Krusty during Krusty's live retirement special. His trigger is a line in Krusty's speech, "I've never had such a great audience."

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